FINDING HER

Episode 2: The Long Month part 2

The grinding of stone against metal echoed through the tunnel like the groan of something ancient waking from a long slumber. The door opened just wide enough for them to slip through.

Alan led the way, his flashlight cutting into the thick dark. The stairwell spiraled downward, walls lined with carved stone, symbols etched deep into their surfaces. Helena kept glancing at the walls, sketching quickly whenever they paused to rest.

“What do you think this place was?” Dorothy asked, her voice hushed. “A bomb shelter? A secret lab?”

“Or a cult lair,” Brad muttered, peering at a carving of the eye symbol surrounded by twisted branches. “The whole ‘eye with a flame’ thing isn’t exactly comforting.”

At the bottom of the stairs, the tunnel opened into a wide chamber, circular and domed. The walls were lined with dusty shelves filled with old tomes, vials, and cracked jars. A stone table sat in the center, surrounded by broken candle holders and a metallic device that looked centuries out of place.

“Guys…” Helena stepped forward slowly, pointing. “There’s something here.”

The device had levers, gears, and a glass orb embedded in its center. When Alan touched it, the orb flickered faintly—just for a second.

“It’s still powered,” he whispered. “After all this time…”

The next morning, everything felt… different. The sky over Lincoln was dull gray, but it wasn’t the weather that made Alan uneasy—it was the feeling that someone had followed them out of that underground chamber.

He kept checking over his shoulder during classes. Brad noticed it too. Their classmates joked about how pale they looked, but Jane—sharp-eyed and always watching—was the only one who didn’t laugh.

“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” she asked them at lunch. “You found something under the chapel.”

Alan blinked. “How—”

“Please,” Jane smirked, “you’re all as subtle as a fire drill. I saw Helena sneaking out of the library with that key days ago. Then last night, security was patrolling near the east wing. You think I don’t notice these things?”

Brad sighed. “You won’t believe us.”

“Try me.”

They told her everything. The tunnel. The door. The strange orb. Jane listened silently, fingers tapping her journal.

“I heard rumors,” she said finally. “Old ones. About a hidden room built by the founder of Lincoln. People said he was part of something—something secret, something powerful. They called it The Ember Order.”

Over the next week, the group became obsessed.

They returned to the chamber whenever they could, always at night. Dorothy deciphered Latin inscriptions. Helena sketched the symbols. Alan tried to activate the orb again, studying the gears and levers. Jane joined them fully, her journal filling with theories, maps, and notes. Hank helped distract guards when needed, though he never went down himself.

What bothered them most was how organized it all was. The Ember Order hadn’t abandoned the room—they had left it ready for someone to find.

Violet grew suspicious.

She cornered Brad one evening in the dormitory common room. “You’ve been acting weird. Sneaking out. Lying to your friends.”

“I’m not lying,” Brad said, not quite meeting her eyes.

“Then what are you doing?”

He didn’t answer. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he wasn’t sure how to explain any of it. Violet’s gaze hardened.

“You’re in over your head, little brother,” she said quietly. “Don’t go digging where things are meant to stay buried.”

That night, they returned to the chamber to find it… different.

The orb was glowing softly, its pulse steady. On the table lay a new object—a small black box that hadn’t been there before. No one had brought it in. No one had seen it appear.

Dorothy picked it up carefully. “It’s warm.”

There was a note underneath. One word:

Welcome.

The black box sat in the center of the stone table like it had always belonged there. No hinges, no seams, just a smooth surface and a faint symbol etched on top—the same flaming eye.

“Are we opening it?” Brad asked, staring at it like it might explode.

Alan hesitated. “Maybe we already did.”

He reached out, brushing his fingers against the surface. The box responded to his touch, humming softly. Then, with a mechanical sigh, it split down the middle, unfolding into four flaps like petals.

Inside was a stack of yellowed parchment and a small, strange device: a bronze ring with a rotating glass lens in the center.

Dorothy took one of the pages and read aloud. “For those who awaken the flame, knowledge will be both a gift and a burden.”

Jane grabbed the rest and spread them out. “These are... notes. Instructions. Some of it is coded.”

Helena picked up the ring. “This looks like a monocle.”

“Try it,” Brad said, half-joking.

Helena raised it to her eye—and gasped.

“I can see markings on the wall. Ones that weren’t there before.”

The others looked, but only Helena could see the hidden script. The monocle, it seemed, revealed another layer of the chamber entirely—one meant only for the worthy.

And then the orb pulsed.

Once.

Twice.

A low mechanical click echoed from the stone door. Behind them, the passage began to seal.

“Run!” Alan shouted.

They sprinted through the narrowing gap, diving out just as the door slammed shut with a deafening boom. The gear locked into place.

The chamber was gone. For now.

“Are you telling me you got trapped in a secret society vault?” Hank asked, wide-eyed, as they regrouped in the dorms.

“Almost trapped,” Brad corrected, “but yes.”

Dorothy paced. “It’s reacting to us. That box, the orb, the door closing—it’s testing us, maybe.”

“Like we triggered some kind of ancient protocol,” Jane added, flipping through her journal. “The Ember Order must’ve built safeguards. This is deliberate.”

Helena sat quietly, the monocle still in her hand. “It showed me messages on the wall. One said, ‘The first trial is awareness.’”

“Trial?” Brad repeated. “So what, this is a game?”

“Or an initiation,” Alan said. “They left the room behind for someone like us. Someone curious enough to find it.”

But something else was happening.

Around campus, odd things began to surface.

An old professor in the history department was found unconscious in his office, a burned symbol on the floor beside him. A first-year student claimed to have seen a figure in a black cloak watching from the bell tower late at night. And Violet—who had always kept her cool—started asking pointed questions she never used to care about.

“Where’s that ring you found?” she asked Brad one night.

“I lost it,” he lied.

She narrowed her eyes. “Be careful, Brad. There are things in this place that don’t want to be remembered.”